Mystery Solved

Unknown perhaps no longer?

Not long ago, I discovered this photo in a folder I had designated as unknown. That folder was a subfolder of pictures that I had inherited from my grandmother so I knew any answer as to the identify of the house or the people was likely to be found somewhere along her line. So I started clicking through folders of pictures along her line and maybe 15 minutes after starting, I got my first major clue.

This is a picture of my great great grandparents, my grandfather in the light suit jacket and my great uncle in the dark coat and hat. They are standing in front of the same house though the trim and railing cap have been repainted with white paint versus the dark paint in the photo above. So immediately my mind turns to the possibility that the first photo is of my great great grandparents along with my great grandmother and her older brother.

Above is a picture of my great grandmother and her older brother Clay. Clay looks very similar to the boy sitting in the wagon in the top photo.

Here is another picture of my great grandmother on the right and great great grandmother on the left. My great grandmother pretty closely resembles the girl in the top photo but my great great grandmother has a different hairdo so it is hard to say she is the one in the top photo but I would guess it is likely.

This is the youngest picture I have of my great great grandfather Frank. I have a number of pictures when he is older, but none of him younger. This picture appears to be of a painting or drawing of him that I think came from one of those county history books containing prominent people. I guess the jury is still out if he is the fellow in the first photo but my guess is that it is likely considering everything else. 

Far Side in the comment on my previous post, theorized that it might be from around 1905 judging from the details. Assuming that accurate, that would make my great grandmother to be eight years old and her older brother to be thirteen which I think also fits.

I next looked in the census records for that era to see if I could verify the location of the house. In the 1900 census, they lived on a farm but in the 1910 census, they had moved to town and lived on an unnamed street in "Block C". In 1920, it was named "Smith Street" which is the same surname as my great great grandparents I think are in the first picture. My only hint was that the people listed before them were on Fulton Street and those after Sunnyside Street. So I hopped onto Google Maps Streetview and took a walk down Smith Street between Fulton and Sunnyside Streets. I didn't see any houses that looked like the one in the above photo but I did find this house below.

It very nearly looks like the mirror image of the house in the first picture. At first I thought it might be that the first picture is actually a mirror image but when I looked at the sides of the house in Google Street View, the bay window bump out is on the right side just as it is in the old picture at the top of this post. Due to trees and the increment of Google's picture taking, I can't see the left side of the house above to see if there is a bay window bump out on the left side as well which might then credence to the top photo being a mirror image of reality. Another theory could be that whomever built the above house, built the house in the first photo too and just mirrored parts of it.

Regardless, I am of the conclusion that the mysterious picture is that of my great great grandparents, Frank and Nettie, my great grandmother Grace and her older brother Clay in the buggy. They are standing beside their own house circa 1905 for some unknown photographer to memorialize the occasion. I have labeled it as such and moved it from the unknown folder to a folder of known photos. 

Mystery solved!